Thanks for all the kind comments I've been getting on The
Filing Cabinet. It's nice not just for the ego boost but because it
shows that there's a growing community of potential college baseball
analysts out there; I enjoy doing this stuff, but I'd enjoy it more if
there were more folks out there doing similar but different things to
cross-pollinate ideas with.

This week, I want to take my annual look at long-term program success.
My definitions on this are still the same -- five-year success denotes
long-term program success, since a team has to go through at least two
full lineups during that time, while the measure of the recruiting class
just departed is best taken by looking at the last three years. In
response to a couple of requests last year, I'm extended the lists to
forty teams this year.

Now, here's an interesting thing: There are no SEC teams in the top 10 over
the last three seasons. Actually, that's not that interesting, since the
ones of us who have been paying attention saw that one coming. The part
that's interesting, though, is that it would be a tough argument to claim
that one of them should be in there -- the best you could do is probably to
try to boost South Carolina over Baylor or Southern California based on
post-season results, but you'd have to ignore some pretty weak regular
season schedules to do it. The pendelum has swung west for now, and
there's some work to be done if the league wants to claim supremacy again.

Washington at #20 is a bit of a pleasant surprise; they've quietly put
together a nice run. Notre Dame at #38 means that I may have to take them
at least a bit more seriously; I tend to write them off completely as an
overreaction to their overranking in other sources.